For the last nearly two months, there was a relatively set narrative on Gaza for after phase one of the hostage deal: either Israel and Hamas would reach a deal on phase two of receiving back the hostages and the IDF further ending the war, or the IDF, under its new aggressive chief, Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir would open the gates of hell on Hamas.
In the event that Zamir and the government went “all-out” against Hamas, this was expected to include invading all parts of Gaza rapidly, as opposed to the very gradual staged invasion that the IDF spread out over late 2023-mid-2024.
It was expected to include moving all of the Palestinian civilians to the al-Mawasi humanitarian area, such that the IDF would have unprecedented freedom to unleash aerial bombing and tank and artillery shelling from the ground on all other parts of Gaza without needing to worry about civilians being mixed in with Hamas.
That was until this past weekend.
Suddenly, there were defense and political voices returning to the talk of gradual and targeted penetrations.
How exactly would this be different from what the IDF carried out against recently exited IDF chief Herzi Halevi? It wouldn’t be.
So the big difference would really be that the IDF would theoretically go back to war in Gaza in a staged and gradual way, but holding out a threat that within some period of days or weeks, if Hamas still did not relent, then the military would take off all of the gloves for real.
The idea of this shift is to calibrate Israel’s escalation to give Hamas a last additional opportunity, under some but limited fire, to get smart and cut a deal more on Israel’s terms.
Yet, the problem with this thinking is that the initial gradual period will already be messaging to Hamas the exact opposite.
A gradual, staged return to battle will tell Hamas that really Israel – even with Zamir in command and the Trump administration giving much stronger backing to dealing Hamas a fatal blow than the Biden administration ever did – is still worried about the consequences of returning to full war and whether it will get the desired outcome.
How many terrorists can still fight for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad?
Questioned about how a return to war will eliminate Hamas’s new recruits, possibly as high as 25,000, and Islamic Jihad, possibly as high as 5,000, when they can all just flee with the other 2.3 million Palestinian civilians running to al-Mawasi, defense sources have acknowledged that ending Hamas militarily will still not be all that simple.
Some defense sources have expressed hope that Israeli intelligence in the last several months has done a strong job of finding and targeting Hamas fighters hiding in schools and other civilian facilities, and this probably can lead to some more successful targeting operations.
But the bottom line is that if Hamas is ready to hide and temporarily put down its weapons, the only way Israel could truly root it out using force would be a very extended military occupation (Israeli soldiers in Gaza, not settlements), something which until now has not had the support of more than around 10% of the Israeli public.
The alternative remains some kind of very imperfect diplomatic settlement, which partially sets back Hamas but does not fully expel the terror group from Gaza.
Given these dilemmas and a sudden shakiness about returning to full war in Gaza – which could lead to more dead soldiers, dead hostages, more global criticism, and more economic instability – the government has opted for “door number three” – avoiding deciding.
This is the reason that Hamas has had more than two weeks of ceasefire without having to give up a single hostage.
It is the basis of the flurry of talks about another interim hostage deal for returning 5-10 live hostages for extending the ceasefire for another 40-60 days.
Also, it is even the reason that the IDF took a risky move attacking an Islamic Jihad drone recently, killing up to nine Palestinians under controversial circumstances.
The Jerusalem Post understands that the drone may not have been carrying out any terror move at the time, and also, the IDF has said some of those who were killed had dual hats as terrorists and journalists, such that if targeting them, it would normally be preferable to do it when they were actually in the midst of or on the way to some kind of violent act.
In other words, the IDF is being increasingly aggressive in small ways to try to intimidate Hamas and being willing to risk harsher global criticism, but it may all be a partial cover for a hesitance to do something much bigger.
Eventually, though, Israel will either need to cut another deal, however imperfect, or choose between a new immense invasion or a return to smaller gradual invasions – with that third choice really also being a way to defer choosing between the first two.
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